


One Time Baby

by larvae



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Consent, Fade to Black, M/M, Marvel 616/MCU Crossover, Marvel Universe, Missing Scene, Party Girls Don't Get Hurt, Romance, Sakaar (Marvel), Slice of Life, Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Compliant, Waltzing, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29411028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larvae/pseuds/larvae
Summary: Loki's hot girl summer on Sakaar.Updates Sundays.Completed.
Relationships: En Dwi Gast | Grandmaster/Loki, Loki (Marvel)/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 40





	1. Cashmere, Cologne, and Hot Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [roundthedecay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roundthedecay) for their thoughtful beta, and to [grieve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grieve) for their relentless support and enthusiasm.
> 
> As I wrote this, it became as much of a worldbuilding exercise as a character study. The Sakaar featured here is based on the MCU, with hints, references, and crossovers from many other sci-fi series and much of my own myth-making.
> 
> P.S. 02/15/2021 4:00PM if you read the version of this i uploaded that had all my track changes edits in it, causing weird formatting and word repetition, no you didn't

Sakaar was not, strictly speaking, a planet. It was an inter-dimensional anomaly that had, due to its imprecise and inconvenient "location", regular contact with newly exiled denizens from a great number of places. It had a non-zero amount of moons. It orbited some undecided number of suns. There were great, flaming holes in the sky accompanied by small, icy tears in the atmosphere and splintering cracks in reality.

Sakaar was disorienting. Arrival on it was almost always an accident. Departure from it was expensive and technologically complicated, and took effort most lost souls didn't have the capacity to put forward. Time flowed not in a meandering river with a single, forceful current, but outwards in ripples from a devouring center, like a reverse time-lapsed sinkhole.

Sakaar had a mathematically improbable birth rate and a staggering death rate. Sakaar was exhausting. And hard. Physically speaking. Difficult, to be sure, in a grander, less ephemeral sense. It was a difficult place, both to be and to be in. But more presently and more precisely it was hard. As a rock. And it came up to meet Loki across the full breadth of his back, knocking the wind and very nearly the lungs clean out of him.

Midgard had recently risen to meet him in much the same way, in the foyer of one Doctor Stephen Strange. Loki was getting very tired of it.

He stayed still for a little while, his shallow breaths gently pushing his fractured ribs against the sides of the little crater he'd made for himself. He took some time to think.

He hadn't fallen from the Bifrost, exactly. He'd done that before, and, desperate to avoid the social faux pas of one-trick-pony branding, he had this time been launched out of it. How the Bifrost stretching from Midgard to Asgard had found its midpoint _here_ was beyond him. All things considered, it felt like nothing short of a miracle that he'd been launched anywhere at all, rather than burned down to scattered atoms and thrown out into the infinite void between stars. With a positive, gratitude-centered attitude, Loki decided to get up.

It hurt rather a lot. He was, in the end, a god, and godstuff can take a beating, but not without protest. The burnished gold of his vambraces was scuffed. His cured leather tunic was torn. Norns only knew what was left of his cape. He was bruised, as was his ego. Behind him was what looked like an infinite expanse of refuse, new additions pouring in endlessly from the tattered sky. In front of him, refuse was piled into a more urban landscape. If he wasn't being tricked by the bright, multidirectional sunlight, he could swear he saw shuttles overhead. Alright, so forward was a preferable direction. How metaphorically apt.

Some experimental first steps proved his legs stable. Twenty minutes of brisk walking and a more flattering glamour brought him to the edge of a marketplace.

"Would you be so kind," he said pleasantly to a bent little creature carrying its multicolored wares in a storefront on its back, "as to tell me where I am?"

"New?" it grunted back.

"Very."

"From?" it shut one of its eyes and widened the other, looking him over head to foot.

"Elsewhere," he said politely. The little creature laughed and stretched out a clawed hand to give Loki a friendly pat on his calf.

"Good girl. Catch on quick," it coughed, and sparkling blue dust shook from its unkempt whiskers, "you're on Sakaar."

"Sakaar," Loki repeated, "I've never heard of this planet."

"Not a planet," it corrected, with a shake of its head, "and most people haven't. Not until they get here."

It shuffled its feet, the laden kiosk on its back swaying with the movement, "How did you get here?"

"Familial dispute," said Loki, not dishonestly. It nodded at him as if it understood.

"Good luck, young lady," it said dismissively, and waddled onward past him.

Through a series of similar conversations that ran the gamut of both hospitality and helpfulness, Loki learned more than he expected but less than he would have liked. This was not a planet, of that everyone was very insistent. Nor was it a dimension, a realm, or an archipelago. It was an anomaly, but nothing any more specific. "Garbage hell planet" was how he decided to mentally refer to it, regardless.

Commerce was very popular here. Currency meant as much or as little as each buyer or seller decided it would. Barter was widespread, but not always encouraged. Loki was cautious, speaking softly and walking with a light step, but he hadn't seen any kind of formal or informal law enforcement. It was a loud and overwhelming place, but not a physically violent one. While he hadn't seen any children, he also hadn't seen anything to suggest that their absence had nefarious roots.

The wares he walked past were varied, but skewed towards pleasure more than utility. For every merchant offering transport, food, or fuel, a dozen offered costumes, jewelry, games of skill, chance, and strength, or hours of their own companionship. Loki traded a fancifully magicked flower for a skin of cool water, and a long story to a small audience earned him a bowl of smoked grey meat over black rice. Something with nine arms and eight eyes very insistently gave him a basket of root vegetables, bowing so low its sloping forehead nearly touched the ground when he took it. Some time later he traded it for a map which proved totally inaccurate.

Everything he learned and everyone he spoke to drew him towards the center of the ramshackle city. Here the buildings were taller, but not nicer, their construction just if not more precarious than the shacks, kiosks, and lean-tos he'd woven through earlier in the day. Transports, gunships, and leisure vessels criss-crossed overhead in a way that suggested no widely adopted traffic system. When two or more vehicles did collide, their debris was scavenged almost instantly, divided roughly between edible and inedible. Loki never saw anyone walk away from any of the wrecks that was not from the descending flurry of hungry denizens. The suns were high, and the many broken moons cast odd shadows.

After a number of hours, the buildings around him began to change in earnest. Their architecture became more definite and intentional, rising skyward in clean parallel lines. The road followed the same pattern, turning from trodden dirt to laid pavement. Despite the evolution of his surroundings toward some degree of sense, Loki was still left to guess at the meaning of the sharp, geometric script he saw on storefronts and street signs. It was impossible to judge how much time had passed since he arrived, not least of all because he couldn't pick a sun to track across the heavens. Having no sense of time and no sense of direction made distance just as impossible to estimate. He was tired, sore from his crash landing, and eager to find his way indoors.

Loki was no stranger to modern metropoleis. His stint in New York hadn't ended as well as he could have hoped, but the time he'd spent there had at least taught him how to navigate a city grid. Here, it was clear that streets laid out east to west were marked with red signage with gold lettering, and streets running north to south had blue signage with white lettering. Loki couldn't be certain of the cardinal points, but the color coding was easy to follow. Navigating the marketplace had been simple enough with the skyscrapers in the distance calling him forward, but having reached them, Loki had nothing else to orient himself around. Annoyed, he conjured a gold coin and flipped it between his thumb and index finger, watching it spin in the air before slapping it down onto his arm.

"Call it," he said to a passing Graske, watching it flare its nostrils and widen its yellow eyes in surprise. It looked at his hand then back up at his face, its three orange headtails wiggling every time it moved its head.

"Heads," it said finally. Loki moved his hand aside, and the Graske hissed when there was no coin beneath it.

"I have two coins for you if you tell me where I can find a magistrate," Loki said, conjuring two coins in his right hand. The little creature thought for a moment.

"Maj.... eee...." its brows furrowed.

"Magistrate," Loki repeated, "or, really, anyone who might be in charge here. Some sort of central authority."

"Master," the Graske croaked, "Grand Master."

"Alright," said Loki, "why not."

The little creature pointed, and Loki followed its gesture. There were a million things it could have been indicating, but if he had to take a guess ---

"That building, there?" he said, tossing his head to their left. It was difficult to judge the size of anything in such an overcrowded environment, but the building in question looked like it might be the largest. Its imposing footprint took up as much space as the next three structures around it, and craning his neck, Loki could see an unusual amount of traffic circling it overhead. It was silver, covered in decorative alien architecture. Higher up along its length there were huge polished windows, gleaming in the sun.

The Graske nodded, and Loki tossed it the two coins he had promised.

The building seemed to be open to the public, as nothing stopped Loki from crossing its threshold, which led into a massive lobby, its polished white floors dotted with gold furniture. The space was full without being crowded, with dozens of colorful visitors lounging, bustling, and stomping their way through it. Loki wondered, not for the first time, if there were such a thing as a Sakaaran. The unimaginable variety of creatures he'd seen so far suggested that there was not. A Sakaaran was someone who had been here long enough to give up on leaving.

At the far end of the space was a manned desk, behind which was a sweeping set of red-carpeted stairs flanked on either side by a dozen mechanical lifts. Their passengers and inner workings could be seen clearly through the polished glass of their walls, gold pulleys and cables lifting all sorts of persons and cargo up into the elevated belly of the building. Loki craned his neck upwards, the open concept skyscraper affording him a good enough view into the first dozen floors above him. What he saw was eye-catching, euphonious, but utterly unhelpful in determining what exactly he'd walked into. He adjusted his dress from undyed roughspun robes and sandals to something subtle but more reflective of his surroundings: a loosely tied green tunic, black leather trousers, and black leather boots. He touched his cheek gently with the tip of his finger, where he could feel the bruise under his glamour threatening to become a black eye.

A rowdy crowd of black clad Trandoshans crashed in through the main doors, laughing and prodding a hissing blue Thanator across the floor. The creature was muzzled, with a massive collar bolted around its neck and weighted shackles on its six legs. Its captors moved it along with jabs of their barb tipped staffs, which sparked white hot at their ends.

With a well-timed sidestep and a shimmering trick of the light, Loki joined their group, locking step with the troupe to bring up the rear. They made their way to the security desk on the raised platform at the end of the lobby, shouting over their captive's yowls of protest.

"For the arena!!" one of them shouted at the woman sitting before them.

Her desk was surrounded by a flurry of monitors, suspended in the air around her by in-built antigrav stands. They bobbed gently as their displays flicked between security footage from all over the compound. In a flash, Loki could discern a dining area, a tiered promenade, multiple living quarters, and what looked like holding cells, in which unfamiliar, enraged alien creatures beat themselves against electrified bars. The woman was a bright, sunshiney yellow, her dozen clustered blue eyes jumping from monitor to monitor as fast as their images could change, her four arms spread to tap at the tiered gold claviature set in four disparate keyboard trays beneath her round desk. The tabletop itself was glossy black, alive with cyan and marigold text gathering and scattering like lines of lightning bugs.

"Scav ID?" she said, without looking at the group. The Trandoshans each echoed off a string of numbers.

"Trophy classification?" she said, tapping at her tabletop interface with her second right hand.

"Alpha 460-1704" said another Trandoshan, the stick in his hand jammed into the Thantor's shoulder, pinning it to the ground.

"Elevator 6 sub-level 9," said the daffodil yellow security girl, tapping a number of keys that lead the frame of one of the cargo lifts behind her to light up and _bing_ softly in expectation, "payment on arrival."

"How much!!!!" grunted a third Trandoshan.

"Not my department," she said, and the lift behind her beeped more sternly.

Loki hung back from the pack of hunters, letting the bustle of their departure hide his transformation back into himself. He clasped his hands behind his back and stepped forward. The girl did not look at him.

"Scav ID?" she said again. Loki made a show of patting around his pockets and looking dismayed.

"D'you know what, I must have f--"

She looked up then, her attention piqued by the unusual answer. Her pupils were hard to find in her mass of eyes, but it was clear she was looking directly at him. She smiled, and her teeth were sharp and black. Loki smiled, and his were not.

"Yoooou don't look like a scrapper," she cooed.

"No," said Loki, unsure what a scrapper looked like, "I'm here to see the Grandmaster."

"I thought you might be," she said, whatever that meant. She reached into the fold of her dress and pulled out a gold keycard, swiping it across the tabletop in front of her. The whole display chirped at her and lit up blue for a moment, before the frame of an elevator to their far left did the same.

"Elevator 12," she said, turning back to her monitors, "you'll want the penthouse suite. Don't be surprised if he isn't there yet, he usually joins the party quite late."

"Oh!!" she turned back to Loki again and winked six of her eyes at him, though not all on one side, "and good luck!!"

Loki bowed his head in thanks and made his way through the glowing door frame. There were no buttons to press, and the doors slid silently shutclosed as soon as he'd crossed them. The lift shot upwards immediately, so smooth and so well crafted were its mechanisms that they even suppressed the initial change in apparent weight when it took off. Which... shouldn't actually be possible if he were going upwards... Loki shifted his weight uneasily, beginning to wonder if all of this had been a touch _too_ lucky.

He didn't have time to wonder long, as the elevator came to a perfectly smooth, barely noticeable halt, indicated by a delicate chime and an opening of its glass doors. He hadn't been able to see anything useful on his way up, just levels and levels and levels of multicolored, indiscernible blurs. With a steadying breath and the mental reassurance that his daggers would be there as soon as he needed them, Loki disembarked.

The penthouse suite was a lot to take in, not only in its absurdity but in its scale. There was... a lot. Of everything. Great quantities of each individual thing and a great number of things in general. It felt very loud on your eyeballs, which wasn't helped by how actually loud it was, oh-- 

Loki was handed a martini glass by a passing waiter. The soft pink liquid inside of it was fizzing, sending tiny iridescent bubbles up past its salted rim. It smelled like eucalyptus and fresh tarmac. 

There were floor to ceiling windows looking out over the sprawling, overcrowded skyline. From here Loki could safely assume that this was the tallest building of the whole lot, as the towering skyscrapers he saw from the marketplace were a half dozen floors below him at their highest. The nonsense bob and weave of air traffic looked even more dangerous from here, where its resulting showers of sparks and scrap metal sometimes pinged off the reinforced glass.

Loki placed his untouched beverage onto an empty tray that passed by him. Whatever else this dimensional anomaly had in store, it at least had designer cocktails and alien hors d'oeuvres. That was good, thought Loki, he tended to thrive in those environments. Centuries of Asgardian political savoir faire hadn't failed him yet, no reason to think they would now.

The color palette was garish, but internally consistent. Anything that wasn't red and white was gold and cobalt, and if it could sparkle or gleam, it did so with fervor.

The attendees were certainly a mixed bag. For every four species Loki could recognize there were another two dozen he could not, and though enough of them looked bipedal, they certainly didn't look like anything he'd ever seen before. The music playing overhead was far too loud for an afternoon soiree, and the midday sun illuminated couples, throuples, and gaggles, all leaning in at kissing distance to shout over the din. It was difficult to tell whether or not he was under dressed, but Loki cast a gold circlet into his hair just in case. His nails, covered in grime and a fair bit of his own blood, shimmered and rematerialized a perfect lacquered black.

"Oooo," came a voice from very close behind him. Loki spun to his left and saw a young woman pulling back her hand from where she had been reaching out to touch him. She had brown doe-eyes, brilliant green skin, and green hair piled high at the top of her head. She crinkled her nose and giggled.

"I'm Vina," she said, stretching her hand out expectantly, "from the Orion system."

"I'm Loki," said Loki, bending to press a kiss to her fingertips.

"Ooooooo! What's a Loki?" she chirped.

"You're looking at one," he said.

"And are all of you so devilishly handsome?"

"In that I am one of a kind."

"A collector's item!!" she cooed, "Rionoj, come here."

A woman with vibrant purple curls and a pronounced brow ridge floated in from their right, the viscous silver liquid in her martini glass half as dazzling as her sparkling leotard.

"Come, look, this one's a collector's item," Vina purred to her.

"A rare breed," said Rionoj, draping her arm over Vina's slim shoulders, "how fascinating. I'm Rionoj, from the unoccupied outskirts of Cort. You are... ?"

"It's called a Loki," said Vina.

"A pleasure," said Loki.

"It could be much more of one," said Rionoj, over the rim of her glass.

"Ah," Loki cleared his throat and splayed his fingers, turning up his palms, "I am... flattered, and very respectfully uninterested."

"Oh boo," Vina pouted, "one of a kind but it's always the same."

"All the good ones, I'm afraid," he sympathized.

"How long have you been on planet?" Rionoj asked, grabbing a drink off the tray of a passing waiter and handing it to Loki. It was clear, poured over ice in a stout crystal glass, with sliced fruit set in a colorful mane along the full length of its rim.

"Well I'm told this isn't a planet," Loki dodged, taking the glass from her hand. Vina waved her hands dismissively.

"No," she said, "it's not. But 'how long have you been falling through this unfathomable rift in the fabric of reality' takes so much longer to say."

"And it's depressing," said Rionoj.

"And it's depressing!!" Vina echoed, "Sakaar is one of the least depressing places I could think to get stuck on, so why bother with the details?"

"Stuck on?" Loki interrupted, sharply.

"Oh you ARE new," Vina said, her eyes widening and her painted mouth falling open, "oh, come sit with us. We'll tell you all about it."

Vina stepped forward and reached for him. Loki offered his elbow, and she wrapped both her arms around his, guiding him toward a plush velvet booth against the west wall with Rionoj taking up the back. They sat, his new friends flanking Loki on either side. Vina tucked her legs up under herself and wriggled close to his side.

"You can drink that, you know," said Rionoj coolly, stretching out her legs.

"Ah, I- "

"Don't worry," Vina interrupted, "I didn't trust anything my first day. But trust me, the refreshments aren't what you should be afraid of."

"He shouldn't be afraid of anything," said Rionoj, draining her glass and tossing it out onto the floor. It shattered, and immediately a squat, droopy eyed creature shuffled over to sweep up the remains.

"This is a pleasure planet," she said sourly, "a pleasure hole in reality. More like the universe's asshole."

"Rionj!" Vina scolded.

"There's nothing to be afraid of here, not when you're on top of the rubbish heap," she crossed her arms and her eyes grew suddenly distant. Vina tutted and reached over Loki to pat her on the knee. Rionoj turned away from her.

"Rionoj had a career," Vina said, leaning back against the booth, stretching out her legs, and kicking off her shoes, "she was a freighter."

"I am a freighter," said Rionoj, "I'm just temporarily indisposed. Once I get my ship repaired we're getting the hell out of here."

"Rionoj is gonna show me the galaxy," said Vina, wriggling her fingers on either side of her face.

"At least its underbelly," she said.

"You have a ship?" said Loki.

"And more than one passenger's seat," Rionoj turned back to him, "why, are you already looking for a ride?"

"Just keeping my options open."

"Well, you have more of them than Rionoj would have you think," said Vina, "there's a lot to do between staying and leaving."

"Tell me," said Loki.

They did, in extravagant detail. Their conversation spanned a number of hours and involved a handful of visitors stopping by to drape themselves over their booth and across their laps. In the process, Loki was fed Xandarian grapes by an emancipated Aakon slave girl, he crossed arms and sipped tulaberry wine with an exiled Aldoran witch, and a less than sober Benzite taught him Denkiri standard rules for Barzan dice.

Sakaar was disorienting, dizzyingly multicultural, and formally lawless, but broadly speaking it had three spheres of influence: the rubbish heap, where everything entered, the marketplace, where everything changed hands, and the arena, at the great sucking center of it all.

The rubbish heap was the outer ring of these three elements, and it was, due to its enormity, the first place most things ended up seeing when they arrived. The locals called it The Tip, spawning all manner of colorful euphemisms about getting out past the tip, heading straight for the tip, and landing hard on the tip.

"That's disgusting," said Loki, crinkling his nose.

"So is Sakaar," said Rionoj, tilting back his head and tipping her glass past his lips to pour the rest of her Lothal spicebrew down his throat.

The Tip was a wasteland and a treasure trove. Anything that fell out the wrong end of any stray wormholes was most likely to land in it, whether dead or alive. There were untold millennia worth of scrap, ruin, and exile piled up beneath the tattered sky. These wastes were patrolled by three factions: the biters, the hunters, and the scrappers.

The biters were the most loosely defined group. These were simply things, or beings, or in-betweens, that lived in the garbage. They enjoyed varying levels of sentience and personhood, and they were perpetually hungry. The hunters moved in packs, and with more method to their madness than simply finding their next meal. They hunted for sport as well as for food, and would venture to the outskirts of the marketplace to trade if and when it suited them. The scrappers, strictly speaking, belonged to the marketplace and the arena. These were denizens that earned their keep trolling the Tip for valuables. The valuables were whatever caught their eye, be it person, animal, or thing. They were in competition with the biters and the hunters to carry home their prizes. Most scrappers had what most market dwellers did not: transportation.

The marketplace was the middle ring between the arena and the Tip. Loki had made his way through it when he first arrived, and from the sound of it he'd seen less than a fraction of it as he did so. The market this new gaggle of friends described to him was incomprehensibly massive. There were suburbs, outskirts, manufacturing and pleasure districts, lower levels, upper levels, shrines, factories, up, down, and midtowns, music halls, concert venues, hotels, motels, diners, and a fair number of trade schools with questionable boasts of accreditation. Despite its fair share of residential districts, the marketplace was built on and for commerce. There wasn't always more money to be made than there was to be lost, but still the market was always aggressively expanding out into the Tip, slowly absorbing the waste into huts, storefronts, ramshackle high rises, and information kiosks.

And lastly, the arena, which this penthouse was attached to. Here, Sakaar hosted its most profitable game.

"What, so they're gladiators? Killing each other off for sport?"

"More or less," said the Devaronian who had introduced the concept, "sort of like dog fighting more like... do you have those?"

"Dog fights?" said Loki.

"Dogs," said the Devaronian.

"It used to be gladiatorial," slurred Ishthek, a Vinvocci that had taken Rionoj's place to Loki's left, "now it's more like a feeding frenzy."

"A feeding frenzy?"

"Yeah, you ever see a Geonosian throw an arch grub at a hungry nexu?"

"Can't say that I have."

"No one eats anyone," said the Devaronian, disgusted, "Ishthek's just sore 'cuz he was dumb enough to bet against the Champion."

"The new guy could'a done it," Ishthek protested, "it weren't a fair fight."

"Who's the champion?" said Loki, standing and spinning in one fluid motion to avoid Ishthek's drunken face plant into the spot he had just been sitting. He sat back down onto an overstuffed blue ottoman, facing his companions.

"I ain't never seen him fight," said the Devaronian, "hard to get a ticket, y'see? But he's brutal. Undefeated."

"The Grandmaster's champion," came a voice from behind him. Loki turned and saw a tall blue skinned man with white hair, a pointed goatee, and a champagne flute in his hand. His brilliant red eyes narrowed. "You must be awfully new if you haven't seen his loyal followers gathering in the streets."

"In fact, I've only just arrived," said Loki.

"Well then, allow me to buy you a drink, welcome you to the planet."

"Oh I've had enough drinks to last me, thank you," said Loki, who hadn't seen anyone pay for a drink the entire time he'd been here.

"Surely you'd care to spend some time with a man from your neck of the woods," the stranger insisted.

"Oh you'd be surprised," said Loki, who really, dearly didn't. He stood, and found that the two of them were nearly the same height. "You're a Kree."

"And you're Asgardian," said the Kree, "bit far from home, aren't you, godling?"

"I'm assuming that's some sort of joke."

"Just an observation," the Kree soothed, "how are the nine realms fairing these days?"

"Somewhat poorly, actually," said Loki, and took a step forward. The Kree blocked his path. He took another, and the Kree blocked again. He smiled. Loki smiled back. He took another step. The Kree blocked a third time.

"Look," said Loki, "I've had a rather trying day if you can believe it and I'd really rather not --"

"Oh, I'm just homesick," the Kree purred, "eager to see something I recognize."

"Recognize this, Vedim," came a voice from over his shoulder. Loki, who was very tired of this game, turned to see a Skrull in black leather armor waggling a slim gold remote between his fingers. He was shorter than Loki by a head, solidly built, with pale green-grey skin and deep red eyes. He caught Loki's eye and winked.

"Scrapper six one six," said Vedim testily, "how nice of you to join us. I've just met this charming Asgardian fellow--"

"Shove off, mate," the Skrull growled, "'fore I make yer neck itch."

Vedim bristled and his unoccupied hand shot up to the left side of his neck. With a stifled grumble, he turned on his heel and left. Nearly jogged, in fact.

"My hero," said Loki.

"Wotcher," the Skrull grinned, and tucked the remote into his brigandine.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your intervention?"

"Akh," the Skrull waved his hand, "didn't do it for you as much, just sick and tired of the smarmy bastard."

"You two know each other?"

The Skrull nodded and pat his chest where he'd hidden the remote, "Aye."

"He called you scrapper," said Loki, with a tilt of his head.

"New?"

"Terribly," said Loki, and bat his lashes.

Scrapper 616 lead the way along the edge of the 360* windows, periodically interrupting his story to point out landmarks of note. He had been on Sakaar for longer than he'd expected to be, but work here had turned out significantly more lucrative than anything he'd done back home. What he'd done back home wasn't mentioned, but Loki tactfully avoided any further probing. Multi-generational intergalactic armed conflicts were touchy subjects. He would know.

"Scrapper" was a job title, not unlike "bounty hunter", "mercenary", or "used hovercraft salesman". Not all scrappers were formally employed by the Capitol (what Scrapper 616 called the center of Sakaar's metropolis, in which they were currently standing, and what he used as synecdoche for the whole central, powerful affair that surrounded the Grandmaster) and so not all scrappers were numbered. In the same way as one could be a poacher, a drifter, a fixer, or a freelancer under their own self employ, most scrappers were just Sakaarans who made their living pillaging the Tip for treasure. There were untold thousands of potential customers all throughout the marketplace that looked to scrappers for new raw materials, potential wares, and off planet exports.

"Yeah, yeah, you'll make steady petty cash off of 'em lot," he said as they stepped aside for a passing Hanar, its translucent, bioluminescent skin casting a halo of blue light over them both, "them's the butchers, the bakers, the candlestick makers. Y'need stuff to sell stuff, but y'need guts to go out an' get the stuff y'need. They ain't got guts, they ain't got ships, so they 'ire 'em."

Numbered scrappers had a formal employer at some level within the Capitol. The lower your number, the closer you were to the inner circle. Your number got lower as you brought in better and better prizes. Scrapper 616 had never formally met anyone below the mid-200s.

There were many places within the Capitol interested in scrap. This building alone employed two thousand scrappers to supply its kitchens, its tailors, its bartenders, and its custodial staff. But the real money, and the real danger, was in the arena.

"I've been hearing that a lot," said Loki, leaning into the hand his new friend had placed on his hip.

"Well that's all anyone wants to talk about 'round here," said Scrapper 616, "it's the only thing this place 'as goin' on."

"That's quite the exaggeration."

"Nah," said the Skrull good naturedly, "yer new, wide-eyed, I get it. There's a lot, but there ain't much. Breaks down to people sellin' an' people buyin'. And they're doin' all o' that fer the arena."

The arena was a Colosseum style venue attached to this very building. There was a fight every night arranged by a rotating roster. Unwilling volunteers were brought in from the Tip to face one another in battle. When one died, the other earned the privilege of fighting another opponent the next night, and the night after, and so on and so forth until they died as well.

But money trees, it turned out, were watered by bloodshed. The economy surrounding the arena was booming. There were ticket sales, merchandise, live coverage and weekly recaps. An entire culture sprang up around Sakaarans who watched the sport, spending their earnings on ephemera, paraphernalia, and licensed or unlicensed crap. Then there was the betting, which drew an impassioned and desperate crowd. Plenty gambled for love of the game, and plenty couldn't stop gambling after they had first thought to fundraise their flight off Sakaar with decent winnings.

"And all this is organized by the Grandmaster?" said Loki, over the rim of his glass. The suns had started to set, lighting up the smog that hung over the horizon in a dazzling display of pink, purple, and green. They had found another rounded booth to sit in and settled in on either side of its curve. Loki had his legs stretched out under the table to rest in the scrapper's lap.

"By and for," said the Skrull, with his hand resting on Loki's ankle, "'is whole planet's by and for 'im. He's sort of, uh-- what d'you have on Asgard? An Allfather?"

Loki winced, but if his companion noticed he didn't let on.

"He's kind of like an Allfather. More like an, uh..." Scrapper 616 grimaced, clearly thinking carefully about his next words.

"A despot?" Loki offered.

"Yeah try not to--" the Skrull cleared his throat, "we don't really-- he's more of a godking for all time."

"Sounds like all the despots I know."

"Aye, but 'e don't like the sound o' that."

Loki chortled, because certainly _that_ sounded like all the despots he knew.

"We actually might catch wind of 'im if we look 'ard enough," Scrapper 616 twisted around, craning his neck to and fro to cast his eyes across the massive suite. Loki offered to help him look, and soon they were side by side on their knees with their elbows propped up on the back of the booth like children.

"Is that him?" said Loki, pointing to what must have been a 400 year old Ferengi with a barely dressed blue Twi'leck in his lap.

"Nah, taller."

"Him, then?" he guessed, this time nodding towards an Acturan Reaver.

The Skrull shook his head, "Older."

"I'm beginning to think this man doesn't exist."

"There!" Scrapper 616 said suddenly. He clearly didn't want to point, but after scanning the room Loki couldn't think what he may have been referring to. Seeing his eyes dart around frantically, the Skrull reached over and turned his chin gently with his hand, pointing Loki's face in the right direction.

"Oh," said Loki, "that's... not what I expected."

Half a dozen meters to their left was a throng of laughing socialites surrounding a reedy man in a sparkling, one armed, gold robe. He had short grey hair gelled up into a style far too young for his face, his wide eyes were lined with kohl, and a painted blue streak began at his bottom lip and ran down his neck before disappearing under his blue collar. He was telling a story that Loki couldn't hear from this distance, and talking with his hands.

"I hear he's poisonous," said Scrapper 616.

"Surely you mean venomous," said Loki.

Scrapper 616 shook his head.

"Well he looks--"

""armless? Yeah, don't 'e just."

'Harmless' would not have been the word Loki had chosen, but he couldn't think of another one. He looked almost shockingly normal considering the kind of world he presided over, but there was something about him that, as Loki watched, he couldn't look away from. He seemed to be stumbling over his words somewhat, and he touched his face too much as he spoke, but the crowd around him wasn't feigning their interest. Whatever story he was telling, it must have been good.

A dour looking woman stood behind him, clad in gold armor. Her dark hair was slicked back into a militaristic bun, and the staff in her right hand looked half as menacing as her expression. She caught the Skrull's eyes and he shrank. She didn't bother looking at Loki.

"That's Topaz," said Scrapper 616 quietly, "she runs the place."

"Oh?" said Loki, "after all that about this tyrant for the ages?"

"Ah well," the Skrull shrugged, "'e throws the tantrums, 'e wants the fights, 'e pays the scrappers. But she runs the place. Brains of 'e operation."

"And the brawn," said Loki.

"Yer not kiddin'," said Scrapper 616, rubbing his left shoulder as if remembering an old wound.

"Well this has been fabulously educational," said Loki, taking his eyes away from the Grandmaster to turn and rest his chin in his hand.

"Glad to be of service," said his friend, dropping his shoulder to face him.

"What else can you teach me?"


	2. Crimson and Clover

Loki watched the suns rise over the horizon from the Skrull's modest quarters. He had a single room on the west side of the Capitol Building (not what it was called, but as helpful a shorthand as "garbage hell planet" had been). It had a kitchenette, a washroom, a dinning/living area, and a double bed. The outer wall had a large round window with domed glass and a sill broad enough to perch on comfortably.

An Akaali battle cruiser jettisoned out of a fiery wormhole in the east, diving out of the sky and braking hard just over the earth. An Akaali female climbed out of its open hatch to stand on the roof with a harpoon in hand, scanning below her for signs of life. His host padded up behind Loki to hand him a steaming mug.

"Thank you," said Loki, warming his hands on the ceramic. It was a thick walled orange thing with a web of grey cracks across its surface from years of washing, like something you might get at a Midgardian diner. The coffee inside it was strong, and the warmth of it bloomed in his chest. The Skrull sat opposite him, shifting to entwine their legs across the shared space.

"People come here willingly, do they?" said Loki, pointing towards the Akaali vessel with his chin. Scrapper 616 nodded and sipped his own coffee.

"Sakaar's an 'ard place to track down," he said as they both watched the ship on its hunt, "but once ye do it tends t' pull ya back."

"Seems like a dangerous venture."

"But a lucrative one, if y'know what yer doin'," the Skrull winked at him, "not the worst thing anyone's ever done fer money."

"They're huntin' Galeen mites," he said, squinting, "the Galeen die out in the galaxy and their bodies tend to fall in the Tip. Mites come with 'em."

"What's the demand like for Galeen mites?" asked Loki, grimacing.

"Y'can make 'em into snake oil," he said, "crush their shells into powder for yer impotence, drink their blood for yer headaches, dry their legs and 'ang 'em in yer doorway lest anyone who seeks to cross it means ye harm."

They finished their coffee slowly, Scrapper 616 nodding towards bands of hunters flushing biters out of scrap heaps with their dogs and scrappers bumping one another's ships out of the air as they chased down newly crash landed rarities.

"Ye had a hard landin', did ye?" he said suddenly, breaking off from a story about a Cimmerian scrapper he'd once seen bitten in half by an angry Vendorian.

"Beg pardon?" said Loki. 

Scrapper 616 gestured to his own face, prompting Loki to raise a hand to his. His cheek felt tender well into his eye socket, but evidently he'd been too relaxed to uphold his glamour over the welt on his face. _Shit._

"Sprang up quick," said the Skrull gently, finishing the last of his coffee, "didn't see it 'till just now."

There was an airy lilt to his tone that put to mind a cat pinning down a canary. Loki bristled, and tossed back his head to drain his own mug. When he lowered his chin to look back at his companion, he instead saw himself; black eye, bruised neck, and tousled hair reflected perfectly back at him. The Skrull, from his side of the window, saw his own pointed ears and crimson eyes seated across from him.

"Figured," Loki watched himself say.

"You know, I think I might keep it," he said, looking over the bruise on his face, "it's actually quite dashing."

"It suits you," the Skrull agreed, wearing his own face again. He waved Loki off before taking his mug to put in the sink.

"Put it back," he said over his shoulder, "I'd much rather look at you." Loki obliged him, turning his back to the window and watching the Skrull pull on his leathers.

"Funny you should mention... as would I," he said softly, looking up from beneath his lashes. The Skrull chuckled.

"You can remind me next time," he said warmly, and walked back across the room to thumb his hand under Loki's chin, "now get out."

Loki pouted.

"Don't gimme 'at face," said the Scrapper, picking up his keys, "I know better than leavin' you here unsupervised."

Loki let himself be ushered out the door, the Skrull's hands on his elbow and the small of his back. He turned back towards him as he was pushed over the threshold.

"You should keep it," said his host, nodding to Loki's swollen eye, his hand hovering over the keypad on the inside of his door, "it does make you look dashing."

The doors slid shut, and Loki could hear him arming the security panel on the other side.

Loki spent the morning exploring, mapping out the Capitol building to the best of his ability. The Skrull's living quarters were part of a long, curved wing that housed staff. From what Loki could tell as he walked down its length, each unit was meant for single occupancy, intended to keep the workforce close to where they were needed and nothing more.

The preferred method of transport seemed to be elevators, which led to hundreds of hallways and suspension bridges that lead outwards to new sectors, like arteries branching out from a heart. What had looked like one towering but roughly cylindrical building from the ground level seemed to house a miniature cityscape within itself. As Loki walked past endless corridors, staff entrances, and disused dumbwaiters he became more and more suspicious of the mental map he was drafting. After leaning over the railing of the east wing's fifth mezzanine and looking out over the sprawling arboretum, he abandoned the prospect all together. Whatever was going on with this building, its internal workings had nothing to do with its footprint.

Sakaar was like that, from what he had gathered. Orienting yourself took leaps of faith and suspensions of disbelief. Abandoning all hope of understanding his surroundings came more easily to him than most, but he was determined to better understand his own place among the rubble, to better carve himself a more favorable one.

The building's midlevels were dedicated predominantly to domestic functioning. Below the staff's quarters were several maintenance levels that stored cleaning supplies, building materials, necessary switch boxes, heaters, and pulley systems. The Capitol functioned on a healthy mix of digital and analog tech, its operations equal parts mechanics and programming. Loki struck up a conversation with a toady little creature who watched him walk a slow and steady circle around a column of braided cables each thicker than his torso.

It hopped up to him and explained what they were attached to and where they lead, croaking through trade jargon without pausing to define it. Loki engaged in a lot of polite nodding.

"We use the Gershian lum hooks to spurge the fitzwidgets," it said with a flourish.

"Alright," said Loki, getting annoyed, "you're just saying words now."

"Yes," it said, "that's what talking is."

Loki blinked down at the little creature. It smiled serenely up at him, sticking its broad grey tongue out to lick over both its bulbous eyeballs. Their conversation didn't evolve much past that.

Below these levels were the kitchens, divided into five wings by who they served and where they served them. Two wings catered the arena, serving refreshments to spectators that bought tickets for the stadium seats and rations to the fighters kept on reserve. Another wing fed staff, making meal packs available for purchase during shifts and supplying several eateries reserved for employees. This excluded scrappers, who were welcome to room in the habitat ring but expected to feed themselves from their hunting grounds same as everyone else. The final two wings were reserved to cater to the upper levels, beginning with the lavish observation decks, the promenade, the penthouse, and finally the Grandmaster's own quarters. 

Loki's tour was brief and his attempted conversations terse, though he managed to sneak a kava fruit and a roll of ahrisa from off a silver tray in the crook of a Furling waiter's arm.

Below the kitchens he had only cages, armories, and training fields to look forward to, so he altered course to head back up, traveling past the staff levels and back to the glitz of Capitol society.

Above the arboretum, an aviary, and a butterfly garden, was a three tiered promenade open to the Sakaaran public. There were a good number of bars and eateries, but the overwhelming majority of the ring was pay to play. Loki saw rows of slot machines, lanes for vole racing, tables for Yalosian dice, and a green carpeted, dimly lit room dotted with low, curved legged card tables with a tongo wheel set on each. The games required luck and skill in equal measure, but as much money as Loki saw change hands (of many dozens of mismatched denominations) he couldn't see where it was that the house took its cut. Each game seemed to be run in isolation in a space best suited to its style of play. There were no uniformed attendants, no card dealers with brass name plates, only cocktail waiters decked out in pearls, crystals, and feathers, floating between tables with laden trays.

"The house doesn't take a cut," came a voice from behind him. 

Loki jumped, spinning around with a conjured dagger in hand, and found himself nearly nose to nose with the man he'd seen entertaining a gaggle of his subjects the night before. He was dressed in the same single sleeved gold robe, this time with a vermilion tunic underneath, and with the same blue stripe from his jaw down to his neck. If he noticed the dagger in Loki's hand, he didn't mention it.

"You said that out loud," he said.

"Ah," said Loki dumbly, knowing perfectly well that he hadn't. With how ridiculously close they were standing, they both had to cross their eyes slightly to look the other straight on.

"Or, I should say, I don't take a cut," said the Grandmaster, looking around the room as if mapping out its corners, "because, uh, I'm the house, you see."

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance," said Loki, trying to decide if he should put away the knife.

"I saw you the other night," the Grandmaster blinked as he said this, for the first time since they'd started talking, "where did you say you were from, again?"

"I didn't," said Loki, deciding to keep the knife for now.

"No of course not, and your name was.. ?"

"Loki," said Loki.

"Oooh, Loki, I like that. Loki... low key, keeping it low key, yeah, I like that."

"And yours was...?"

"Loki? Oh," he chuckled, bringing his hand up to rub his chin, "oh, no. No, my name's not Loki, that would uh- that really would be something, wouldn't it?" He turned on his heel without waiting for a reply.

"Walk with me Loki," he said. 

Loki, without fully understanding why, did. They strolled along the promenade, Loki locking step with his new tour guide. They were almost exactly the same height, so it felt natural to match his stride. He thought of the bruise on his face he had decided not to hide, and of the dagger still in his hand, and then he tried very pointedly not to think about either of those things, or anything else at all, because he had--

"I'm not a telepath," the Grandmaster said suddenly, and if Loki could have grown paler he would have, "there's never a good time to say that." He tutted, sounding genuinely disappointed.

"I know, I know, that's exactly what a telepath would say," he shook his head and shrugged, "it never comes up if you don't bring it up but everyone's always thinking it. They've all heard the rumors. Who did that to your face?"

"The ground," said Loki, too disoriented to lie.

The Grandmaster stopped, and Loki nearly bumped into him. He furrowed his brows and reached out his hand. Halfway through the motion he thought better of it, and left his right hand suspended in the air between them while tucking his left behind his back. Loki thought he was going to say something. He certainly looked like he was about to. But instead he turned back around and kept walking. Loki blinked and took three hurried steps to catch up to him.

The flow of traffic on the promenade parted before them like a willing sea, which was all the better for the fact that the Grandmaster seemed to be leading them against its grain.

"So, have you been enjoying yourself?" he said, turning back to look at Loki for a moment, "This, you see, this is all my, uh..."

Loki watched his hands whirl through the air, twisting at the wrist as if he were conducting. 

"Interdimensional anomaly?" Loki offered.

"Ooooo, anomaly, now that's a five dollar word, isn't it? Anomaly, sure, I like that, interdimensional anomaly. That's good! Is that, uh, is that what they're calling it? The, uh... the interdimensional anomalians?"

"It's a phrase I've heard," said Loki.

"It's a good one," said the Grandmaster, and Loki was struck by the sincerity in his voice, "look at you, huh? Smart and beautiful, now isn't that a winning combination, so!!"

He turned on his heel, catching Loki in his arms; his fingertips balanced on the outside of his elbows, the pads of his thumbs resting on the pulse points at their bends.

"So tell me," he said, picking up the frayed tail of his sentence as if his maneuver hadn't severed it, "what do you think of it?"

"O- of... ?" Loki stammered, thinking again of the knife in his hand. Norns, his hands were so... warm. Not painful, not burning, just noticeably warm. Warm enough that he could feel them through the fabric of his tunic, like a stone set out for hours in the sun. What the hel kind of a--

"Of this!" said the Grandmaster, turning his head to and fro to gesture around them both with his chin, "all of it, of my uhm... well, to use that delightful phrase, of my interdimensional anomaly."

"Honestly, I've yet to get my bearings," said Loki, who had always found that word especially helpful when he was lying, and was shocked to hear himself use it in earnest, "but it's been, uh... it's certainly agreed with me so far."

"Yes I can see that," said the Grandmaster, raking his eyes over his neck. Which was odd, actually, because he'd left the bruise on his face but he'd certainly made sure to remove the ones on h--

"What have you played?" he said, leaning in with giddy anticipation.

"Oh, I haven't --"

"You h- oh we'll have to deal you in somewhere, hold on --" the Grandmaster released Loki from his grasp and took a few undecided steps to and fro, his eyes darting around in search of something, guided by his animated hands as they moved through the air. After a moment he snapped and pointed, walking towards where he'd indicated. Loki followed.

"Have you built this place?" he said, finally stowing his blade.

"Hm? Oh, uh, it sort of builds itself, really," said the Grandmaster, leading them up a twisting set of carpeted stairs. Loki's brows furrowed. It was hard to say if he was being withholding or if he truly never gave it much thought. Had he ascended to his throne, then? Placed himself at the seat of power over a Tip and a marketplace and a capitol that had already come together? Or had this place congealed around a central influence, fed by the generous holes in the sky and formed to the needs of the arena? _His_ arena, as Loki had been told, built to his specifications and meant to fulfill his whims. Surely there was more to his involvement than--

"Here we go," he said, once they'd reached an empty card table. It was gold, like almost all the furniture, with a pit carved into the middle and a little notch at every seat where you could place your cards without having to guard them from your opponent's prying eyes. The Grandmaster pulled a chair out for Loki and then sat opposite him. He snapped, and a caerulean Twi'leck girl in a backless ochre dress ran up to sit at the dealer's chair.

"I'm not sure how to play," said Loki, watching her set up a tiered, multicolored wheel in the center of their table and begin shuffling two decks of octoganal cards, one with white backs and another with red.

"Oh you'll catch on," said the Grandmaster, raising his hand to snap at a passing waiter who began sprinting over before his fingers could meet, "it's Silurian Gwent, it's very intuitive, here-- we'll play an open face round to start and I'll walk you through the turns, it'll be fun."

The Twi'leck girl obediently flipped the decks she had been shuffling and dealt out nine cards each. Together, she and the Grandmaster walked Loki through the seven suites, each containing six numbered and four face cards. There were values assigned to each card based on the current field of play, determined by rolling two six sided dice through the towering wheel at the center of the table and accounting both for the sum of their role and the color they each landed on. It was a deck building game, with each player racing to build a robust stock of numbered cards for their point values (tallied at the end of each round) and a balanced hand of face cards (discarded back into the dealer's hand at the end of each round to be redistributed in the next, but used in play as action cards to subtract or reconfigure an opponent's hand) before the two decks ran out. Keeping up with it required a fair bit of arithmetic, but the rounds passed by quickly and within three games Loki had found his legs. Together, he and the Grandmaster managed to clear both decks in forty, then thirty, then fifteen minutes, playing in dead silence by their final lightning round, too focused on the flow of the game to chat.

After eight full games, the Grandmaster clapped and moved them to another table, this time to play trick taking Cyvasse with an Oogri dealer. From there they moved to another table for Kadis-kot and a third for Thud, Tadek, and Sozou, which could all be played on the same field. He drank throughout, draining glass after glass of multicolored, fancifully garnished cocktails served by a dozen nervously circling waiters. Loki, the better to keep his wits about him, nursed one sparkling Ambrostine for all the hours they played.

To call the man a ludophile would be a woeful understatement. For all his airy, lackadaisical banter he held a pinpoint, singular focus on whatever field of play was set before him. He played not only to win, but to best explore every avenue the game had to offer him. He changed his strategy with each round, playing first for highest point total, then to end the game in the shortest number of turns, then to earn the least number of points in the greatest number of moves without allowing Loki to earn the number of points _he_ would need to end the round.There was an unmistakable grace in each way he played, leaping between tactics on a dime and honoring the spirit of each game. What's more, he taught each game expertly, making sure Loki had his footing with each new set of rules before playing against him in earnest.

For their first dozen matches, Loki played with a knot in his stomach, a weight on his chest, and the inescapable feeling that he was being tested for some secret, dangerous purpose that was utterly beyond him. As he watched their Oogri dealer shuffle their Cyvasse deck for a third time he noticed that the feeling had disappeared. Try as he might he couldn't seem to get it back. He could recommit to his caution, but his suspicion had left him. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was playing with a friend.

The Grandmaster had a truly baffling affect of complete and impenetrable sincerity. His joy was infectious, and for all his intricate technical knowledge, he played each game with categorical delight. They switched between games too quickly for Loki to develop much of a strategy, so he fared better when there was more luck involved than not. But what delighted the Grandmaster most was not to do with winning as much as it was to do with the joy of playing. He celebrated most when Loki made a move that showed the advance of his _understanding_ of each game, regardless of how close it brought him to victory.

Not to say that he didn't win. He did win. Not as much as he would have liked, but he did win a number of games. He tried not to keep track because the ratio of games played to won very quickly began bruising his ego, but it was a non-zero amount. He didn't lose every time, only most of the time. Besides, it's not like the Grandmaster was _letting_ him win on the rare occasion that he did, so it was all the more impressive that he was able to do so at all, considering how new each game was to him. In fact, it was an achievement in its own right that he had kept the man's attention for as long as he had, s-

"That was marvelous," said the Grandmaster at the close of their umpteenth round of Sozou. Loki, who had lost the game in ten, then six, then three turns, disagreed.

"You're really very good, now, uh," the Grandmaster pulled back the gold sleeve of his robe and then the red sleeve of his tunic as if looking for a wristwatch, "would you look at the time, hey, Loki, listen- how would you like to have dinner with me?"

Loki blinked, casting a glance around the room in search of a window. They'd met about mid-morning, how had he not noticed--

"I'd be honored," he said quickly.

The Grandmaster stood from their table, bubbling with broken phrases of delight, and offered his elbow. Loki stood to take it, and the Grandmaster led them down the same set of carpeted stairs they had taken to sit at the game room some nebulous number of hours ago, down the same length of the promenade they had walked, and then to a gold and glass elevator that pinged obediently as soon as they approached it. He talked in his usual rambling, animated way the whole time they walked, juggling three stories at once.

Dinner was served in the penthouse at a long table amid a large crowd. The Grandmaster sat at its head with Loki at his elbow, the both of them leaning close to one another to continue their conversation over the din. There were dozens of half familiar faces he'd seen in passing from the night before, and swaths of newcomers floating by, past, and through the gathering as the evening turned to night.

The Grandmaster's attention was eagerly sought and easily given. Loki watched him get a neck massage from a Drakh, a Paaerdaug kiss every knuckle on his left hand with both its mouths, and what could safely be called a _throng_ of acolytes pass through his lap. He doled his time out generously among the many interested parties, but through it all he never strayed from Loki's side, turning to him between each interruption to pick up the thread of their conversation exactly where it had been cut.

Dinner gave way to cocktails which gave way to coffee which gave way to lounging, all backlit by the brilliant pulsating lights of the holes in sky and the hundreds of ships, skippers, and shuttle crafts careening through its tattered velvet.

For all the disfluency of the Grandmaster's sentences, he was an aggressively charming storyteller. Captivating, if Loki had to pick a word. What's more, he was a surprisingly good listener, as eager to hear a story as he was to tell one. He had a tendency to hang on every word, leaning further and further in towards the speaker until the space between his affirmative little syllables grew too small to be sustained and he was practically humming along. He asked Loki about his day, about what he had seen in the marketplace, about where he had fallen when he landed in the Tip. He asked about his favorite card games, his favorite colors, whether or not he liked chilled wine. It was a superficial and meandering conversation, but the weight he put to each question made each answer feel important.

What's more, he took to tracing over the back of Loki's hand with his fingertips, leaning his chin on the palm of his other hand and looking positively _lost_ in his eyes. After a time he walked two fingers from his wrist to his elbow, pulling him close with all the grace and subtlety of a collapsing neutron star. What's all the worse was how easily Loki let him. He may have even leaned into it a bit.

It would be indelicate but not inaccurate to say that Loki had kissed a fair number of people over the course of his godhood. At least enough to have forgotten the details of most of them. The kiss that the Grandmaster leaned over to give him now stood apart from the rest. Easily he was experiencing one of the top five kisses of his life so far. Maybe the top three depending on how well things went from here.

It was, like any good kiss, involved. The Grandmaster had one hand wrapped around his middle, pulling Loki into his lap with startling ease, as if rather than fifty stone he weighed nothing at all. He had his other hand at the back of his neck, cradling the base of his skull like he was holding a babe. Loki had his arms wrapped around the Grandmaster's neck, holding on for dear life as he was kissed starstruck and breathless. It took a lifetime of well practiced self control not to bite him. He'd been nothing but genial so far but it was hard to say how he'd take it. He could be quick to anger. Maybe he'd lash out. Maybe he'd kill him. Worse, maybe he'd stop kissing him.

Someone somewhere in the great unfathomable distance cleared their throat, and Loki tasted air again.

"Topaz!" said the Grandmaster, and as Loki's eyes refocused he saw his blue lipstick smeared haphazardly over his chin. When he flicked his tongue over his own lips, he tasted ash.

Topaz, as stern faced and sour as she had been the other night, was standing across the table from them with the same gold staff in her hand. The giant orb at its end glowed menacingly.

"Oh, I'm so glad you've joined us, uh, I've just b-"

"Where have you _been_ , sire?" she interrupted, and Loki had never heard the word used in such a derogatory fashion.

"Uh, well, actually, funny you should ask, uh-- I've been getting to know my new friend, Loki, here he--" The Grandmaster, for all his dithering, did not remove Loki from his lap, nor take his arms from around his middle. Loki, in turn, stayed hanging at his neck, deigning to give a small, polite sort of noise when his name was mentioned.

"He's from, uh," the Grandmaster glanced briefly at him if only to break the mounting tension of Topaz's icy stare, "where did you say you were from, again?"

"I didn't," said Loki warmly.

"That's right! That's right, he didn't, uh... yet. Loki! Loki, this is Topaz, my, uh, my right hand, er--" he cleared his throat forcefully, "the captain of the uh, of my guard. Topaz, this is Loki."

Topaz looked at him like one might evaluate a grease spot on a linen tablecloth. 

"Fine," she said in his general direction.

"How do you do?" said Loki, leaning forward to rest his head on the Grandmaster's shoulder, pressing into the crook of his neck.

"Sire, I shared your agenda this morning," Topaz said stiffly, wrestling her anger down with her unyielding upper lip, "I had it sent up with the Xindi girl. You can't tell me you missed her."

"What? No, no, of course not, no. No, she was very nice, she brought breakfast."

"She was _bright green_ ," Topaz said, biting down through her words so hard a vein began to pulse in her neck.

"Yes, she was lovely! You know, she was telling me th--"

"Sire, you had meetings scheduled," Topaz interrupted, and Loki listened to the Grandmaster hem and haw, wriggling in his seat as he was scolded.

"Well we can have them tomorrow," he said in a small, petulant voice, "it'll be fine, honestly, just reschedule."

He waved her off, too uncomfortable to meet her eyes. Loki could feel him rub his jaw over the top of his head like an anxious cat.

With a final withering look and a terse 'very well, sire', Topaz stomped off. Loki watched the crowd part for her as she did so. Everyone she passed by straightened their back, lifted their chin, and squared their shoulders, or else scampered off as far as they could go. Loki straightened up when she had disappeared far enough into the crowd, leaning back on the Grandmaster's lap and putting his hands up to rest on either side of his neck. He looked caught, like the scolding had really mattered. Loki thought of what Scrapper 616 had said about who really ran the place and wondered for a moment if he was straddling the right lap, or just the easiest to get into.

"Well," said the Grandmaster, looking straight past the worry beginning to bloom over Loki's face, "we should probably call it a day, then, get you set up with a suite."

"A suite?" said Loki.

"Yes!" said the Grandmaster, as if it should have been obvious.

"Ah," said Loki, who had assumed what it was usually safe to assume after the living daylights were kissed out of you. The Grandmaster didn't seem to catch his meaning.

He was led by a Xanthi gentleman down a hallway and through three sets of elevators. The final pair of glass doors slid open to reveal a small windowless lobby and a single entryway directly across from them, framed by two exotic looking ferns whose green and orange foliage touched the ceiling. The Xanthi man bowed his head and gestured forward with his hand, staying on the lift while Loki disembarked. He did so with the distinct and unpleasant feeling that he had been led off to be stowed away.

The doors opened for him as he approached, their mechanisms whisper quiet as they parted. His quarters weren't exactly lavish, but they were well short of modest. There was an enormous window right in the middle of the outward facing wall, shaped like three intersecting circles, one in the middle whose edges touched the ceiling and the floor, and two smaller ones on either side. There was an adjoining bedroom, a kitchenette, and blessedly, an en suite bath with a proper tub and a standing shower. Everything was gleaming white with red and gold accents, and the water pressure was divine.

The bed was large and soft and piled high with silk sheets, down pillows, and velvet clad duvets. With a final lazy bit of magic to put him into bed clothes, Loki flopped over, curled up, and fell fast asleep.


	3. Perfume, Cognac, Lilac Fumes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kissing, canoodling, capitol punishment, and Glenn Miller's Moonlit Serenade

Loki awoke well past dawn, sunlight flooding his new quarters like melted butter. He yawned, surprised at how badly he had needed a good night's sleep.

It wasn't so long ago that he'd spent every night in a proper bed and woke every morning properly rested. How quickly the body forgets. Even divine bodies, especially after dropping a mile out of the sky.

He had only just washed his face and acknowledged his still wet hair in the mirror when his door pinged softly. It had an inquisitive tone, and when Loki stuck his head out of the bathroom it pinged at him again.

"Come in," he said, wrestling down the question mark at the end of the phrase.

The door slid open to reveal an almost Asgardian looking man carrying a domed silver tray. He wore an orange tunic tied at the waist, and his long brown hair was braided in an intricate pattern across his face. He bowed before entering, and made his way to the table in front of the main window. He set down the tray and removed its dome to reveal what was recognizably breakfast save for its alien color palette. There was an egg cup, its contents' blue shell peeled back at its tip to reveal a green interior. Half a sliced fruit with a pink rind and flesh so brightly, intensely orange it nearly glowed. A slim glass of suspiciously opaque purple liquid, and a muffin, which was blessedly muffin colored.

"Thank you," said Loki, and the not quite Asgardian man inclined his head before moving to the kitchenette, where he set about making coffee in a large, many tubed contraption Loki couldn't look at without feeling dizzy. He sat down with his back to the window and touched his fingers to his eye. The bruise was reaching its worst stage, now, but at this point it would probably be _more_ suspicious to hide it.

As Loki was working up the courage to sip whatever violet concoction had been placed in front of him, the door pinged again. He looked at his first guest, who looked back at him, and neither found an answer in the other's face.

"Come in," said Loki again, setting his glass back down onto its tray.

The doors slid open and this time revealed the Grandmaster, gold robe, blue stripe, and all. He had his hands folded behind his back and the purposefully austere expression of a man who had been posing in anticipation of a door sliding open.

"Loki!" he said, his generous features melting back into their usual state of animation. He sounded pleasantly surprised, as if he'd thought Loki might not be where he'd left him. "I thought I'd join you for breakfast, you uh, wouldn't mind would you?"

Loki gestured to the chair opposite him, putting on what he hoped was a warm and inviting expression rather than one that indicated he had no option to decline. The Grandmaster made his way across the room, and Loki stood from his chair to greet him. He took both his hands into his and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth before pulling back to tut at his black eye. He raised a hand and moved his chin to and fro, muttering in concern.

"That really was a nasty fall," he said, swiping his thumb over Loki's cheekbone.

"It looks worse than it is," Loki reassured.

"Does it hurt?"

"Only if I think about it too much."

"Well! Then we'll have to distract you," said the Grandmaster, giving his shoulders a gentle squeeze and elegantly moving his cloak aside to take a seat. He waved a hand over his head and the man in the orange tunic came forward from the kitchen to pour two cups of coffee.

"So, tell me, Loki, what should we do today?" the Grandmaster said, stirring what was frankly a ridiculous amount of sugar into his cup.

"I'd not keep you from your duties," said Loki politely.

"Oh you're not keeping me from anything, Topaz has it handled."

"I'm not sure she would agree."

"Oh, no, it'll be fine. It always is, she has things figured out. How about," he took a sip of his coffee, made a face, and set it down to add more sugar, "I show you the arena, huh? Take in a matinee?"

"If it would please you," said Loki, treading very carefully.

"It would, oh it certainly would, hey, how long are you staying?"

Loki took a sip of his coffee and gave a thoughtful pause, "I don't think I've decided."

"Well then we'll have to persuade you," said the Grandmaster, and setting his elbow on the table, stretched out his hand. Loki placed his palm over his, and the Grandmaster leaned forward to kiss his knuckles. Again his skin was hot. Unreasonably hot. Hot like holding your hand over an engine after it had been running for hours. Like taking a nap under the afternoon sun. As Loki felt his breath pour over his hand he was surprised it didn't steam.

"I would certainly welcome you to try," he said, coquettishly implying he had any way to get off this planet, out of this interdimensional anomaly, or away from this megalomaniac.

From that moment until well into the afternoon, the Grandmaster did his best.

He took Loki on a tour of the arboretum, which he had only seen from above, and named each bud, branch, and sapling that he had won off formidable opponents or from well placed bets. That? Oh that was a Rulobar tree from the outskirts of Gent, yeah. It was transported here with its root system still intact. They make something out of it, the Gentians, something to do with the water that collects in its roots, uh huh. Prophetic wine, I think, yeah. Won that one in a Centariuan poker championship. They toured the aviary, where winged creatures that could hardly be called birds mixed with their feathered companions to drink honeysuckle wine from a dish placed in the cupped palm of Loki's hand. Each specimen was expertly cared for and clearly very tame, showered as they were with attention from the many hundreds of capitol visitors that toured their home each day. Half of them were winnings and the other half were gifts, though a third half the Grandmaster assured him had simply been born here, sired by the many dozens of creatures that shared the space. Some were not only tamed but trained, taught to retrieve stray shuttlecocks, frisbees, rings, darts, and other paraphernalia that found its way into the rafters.

Next they made their way to the butterfly garden, where winged insects alien and familiar flitted from flower to flower, all their tapping, chittering, chirping, and stridulation, melting together to fill the air with a harmonious buzz, like a choir of Risian singing bowls. With a snap of his fingers the Grandmaster had a blanket laid out of the grass to serve lunch, fed to Loki off gold plates with gold utensils or else passed straight from the Grandmaster's fingers to his lips.

If he had stumbled across such unparalleled luxury anywhere else, Loki would have guessed they were spoils of war. There were flora, fauna, tapestries, amphora, baskets, caskets, and treasures untold from thousands of nameless and unknowable worlds. The Grandmaster pointed to each one Loki asked about and detailed who he had won it off of and where, more interested in telling him how he'd done so than what the item was. Some, he explained, were on loan from his brother, who cared more about these kinds of things but didn't always have the space for them. And they were good fun anyway, ay?

More than anything the Grandmaster was abuzz with excitement at _showing_ Loki these things. He guided him along with a hand at his back, on his hip, around his shoulder, directing him from one object of glittering splendor to the next. Whenever he found a space in his ongoing narration, he would fill it with a kiss, pulling Loki in towards him, turning on a dime to bring their lips together, or else coming up behind him to swing him off his feet and into his arms.

He was talkative well past the point of narcissism, and the stories he told could only have happened over ten, twenty, a hundred lifetimes. But he told them with such a convoluted stumble from irrelevant detail to irrelevant detail that he simply _must_ have lived them. And even in revisiting familiar objects tied to old memories his wide eyes brimmed with wonder at each one.

Loki realized, in horror, that he felt charmed. It was hard not to. The Grandmaster was a practiced host. He kept their conversation not only alive but lively, listening with shockingly believable rapture at Loki's answers to his infrequent questions. He was handsy, but not clawing, always punctuating just the right phrase with a touch, a grab, or --and Loki felt the gooseflesh spring up on his neck and down to his chest at the gesture -- a gentle brush of his hair behind his ears. What's more he spoke casually of a future, their future, that promised a veritable garden of delights.

"Hey, Loki," he said at one point as he was braiding a lock of hair behind his ear, "have you ever, uh, have you ever seen the Tannhäuser Gate?"

"I haven't," said Loki, thinking as loudly as he could that really, he could pull harder, if he wanted to, he wouldn't mind.

"Oh, we'll have to take you there sometime. They're just beautiful, absolutely lovely, especially in the spring. We could, uh, we could make a day of it. They're not in this sector so-- oh that _would_ be fun wouldn't it? That's something to uh, to keep in mind." He finished off the braid with a gold bead, and leaned to kiss the shell of Loki's ear. "Perfect, hey, have you ever seen Drowian kishwoki? They're playing a six round quickmatch down at the Anglonian restaurant today let's go check it out."

They did, to the unending delight of the Grandmaster, who loved watching games as much as he loved playing them. Their time together seemed to stretch comfortably into forever, the hours bending to fit around the endless parade of idle and idyllic luxury the Grandmaster put before them. Loki couldn't find a clock, and still couldn't be sure of how many hours each sun spent suspended in the Sakaaran sky, but surely they'd been at this for days, now. Not to say he felt tired or bored, only to note that there wasn't _any way_ they could have accomplished all of this in--

“Oh!” the Grandmaster said suddenly, slamming his palms down on the railing they were both leaning against, causing the Vidiian girl who had joined them to spill her cocktail.

“Loki,” he turned, grabbing Loki by the shoulders, “I’ve just remembered, oh I have, just the most wonderful thing-- oh this is really gonna be great, here, here-- follow me."

Loki assented, and was led with a great deal of urgency away from the railing that framed the field of play, out from the Anglonian restaurant, across the promenade, through two elevators, and finally down a dimly lit hallway into a small adjoining room designated for.... lounging, it would seem. There was a conversation pit filled with pillows in the middle of the gilded floor and gem toned velvet draped over the walls. The room was lit by a few dozen brightly colored lanterns, something glowing inside of them to shine through their painted glass. They bobbed through the air, suspended a few inches from the ceiling by... magic, if he had to take a guess. Or else some fantastically small anti-grav field laid into their frames.

"Here we go, here we go, oh you're gonna love this," said the Grandmaster, approaching a small standing cabinet in the corner, "this is a-"

"It's a gramophone," said Loki.

And so it was. An antiquated, Midgardian thing, made of wood and brass.

"Oh, oh... you, uh, you've seen one of these before?"

"Yes, I've... spent some time on Earth," Loki said delicately.

The Grandmaster looked slightly put out, like he'd been stripped of the chance to show him something truly marvelous.

"But I've never heard one play," Loki lied, and the Grandmaster brightened.

"Tivan, my uh, my brother he-- he, uh, he gave this to me oh..." he waved his hand, "some, uh, millennia ago, now."

Loki opened his mouth to call his timeline into question, but thought better of it.

"Will you show me how it's done?" he offered instead.

"Yes! Yes, absolutely, here, let me just--" The Grandmaster knelt and pulled a record from the cabinet the device sat on, making a show of balancing the twelve inch shellac plate on its edges, suspended between his fingers in parallel to the floor. He blew imaginary dust off its surface and placed it gently onto the turntable.

The process was more involved than what Loki had seen of the slightly more modern record players, which he had watched experience a re-surge of popularity on Midgard; a world with a very short history that it forgot very quickly, where the very recent past had little time to fade before becoming novelty.

He watched the Grandmaster turn the gramophone crank a number of times before pressing a button at its front and moving the tone arm into place, balancing the needle in the groove at the record's edge. The scalloped gold sound horn crackled to life instantly, playing a few discordant notes before settling into its melody. It played for a moment, the Grandmaster moving his hands fluidly through the air as if to conduct it.

"I know this one," said Loki softly.

"Hm? Oh? You do?" the Grandmaster clapped his hands together in delight, "Oh, you've heard it?"

"Yes," said Loki, "but not like this. It was playing on... phone speakers." He paused and raised his eyebrows, trying and failing to read the Grandmaster's expression. Did he know what a smartphone was? Would it be pedantic to try and explain it, or-- Better not. "This sounds quite different," he said instead.

"Better?"

"Yes," said Loki, with a laugh, "much, actually."

"Well, then since you know it, you'll have to promise that you'll still let me lead"

"L-- oh!" Loki's question dissolved into stammers of protest as the Grandmaster wrapped an arm around his middle. He took Loki's right hand into his left and pressed their bodies close together. "Grandmaster, I really must protest, I don't--"

"Sure you do!" the Grandmaster interrupted, "now just put your other hand on my shoulder, like that, there you go and of... we... go!"

Loki grumbled, but surrendered to a simple two step waltz. There were a number of turns he didn't anticipate, and he scrambled to move his feet out of the way in time.

"No, no, come on now," the Grandmaster chided, "let me lead."

Reluctantly, Loki did, allowing himself to be guided in broad, sweeping circles across the gilded floor. The tune carried on wordlessly as they danced. It was Glenn Miller's Moonlight Serenade. Loki had heard it in New York some years ago, playing from an iPhone with a shattered screen, propped up by a pop socket on a folding card table. The distortion in the audio had been digital, a product of slow Wi-Fi paired with water damaged speakers. This was different. Warmer, somehow. Almost soft and otherworldly.

The Grandmaster slid his hand down from the small of Loki's back to the curve of his hip. His face softened, his genial expression giving way to wonderment. Loki held his eyes and swore he felt the ground give way beneath him. He slipped his hand from his shoulder to wrap around his back, burying his face in the crook of his neck. The needle reached the center of the record and the tone arm lifted. The turntable continued spinning, and for a few more unquantifiable Sakaaran minutes, they swayed in silence.

"Would you look at the time!" The Grandmaster said, moving effortlessly out from Loki’s arms to make a show of pulling back his sleeve and looking at his bare wrist, "listen, Loki, if we hurry we could make it to the afternoon spar. The warm ups test out new weapons mid-week it's, uh, quite a show. Then the really good ones test the new beasties. It's great fun, should we go?"

"I am at your behest," said Loki, turning his palms to the ceiling.

"I'm not boring you, am I?" the Grandmaster's face dropped suddenly. But it wasn't anger or disappointment that weighed down his features it looked like... concern.

"Of all the things you've proven your hand at, Grandmaster," said Loki, "that is one task I think you're unequipped for."

"Oh good," said the Grandmaster, brightening immediately, "that's uh, very sweet of you to say, you know, you charming thing you, now--" He stood and offered an elbow.

Loki took it, and let himself be led up another few floors to a floating observation deck. They weren't the first to arrive. A half dozen waiters were already serving refreshments to a few dozen well dressed guests. Far below them, Loki could see through the massive floor to ceiling observation windows, a handful of gladiators were stretching, re-tying their armor, and taking practice jabs at the empty air.

The Grandmaster led them through the sparse crowd to a small cushioned sette near the window. It was one of three such little benches placed around a low table, clearly intended to host a small gathering. This time, unlike any other time that day that the Grandmaster had sat anywhere, no throng of eager acolytes came to settle around them. This, it seemed clear to the crowd now keeping their respectful distance, was to be a private affair.

"Now, let's see, who do we have here," the Grandmaster rubbed his hands together, craning his neck to better see the tiny figures warming up below.

"Let's see, let's see, let's see now.... Oh! There's Elloe she's quite the firecracker," he gestured towards a red skinned maiden in green armor, testing the balance on a mace, "now don't, uh-- don't let her size fool you, she's uh, quite formidable."

Loki watched her throw the mace at her attendant and grab a flail instead, deftly spinning it from hand to hand.

"She's been here, uh, how many turns now let's see uh... oh since the spring I think. Good numbers, she's got good numbers-- well, you'd have to, wouldn't you, if you were still down there."

Loki crossed his legs.

"Have you uh, have you watched a fight yet?" the Grandmaster asked, turning towards Loki to place a hand on his knee.

"This will be my first," said Loki.

"Oh! Well this isn't-- oh I'll have to take you to a real one, this is just a warm up, you can't really-- I mean it's amazing, really amazing, what these guys can do down there. It's incredible. When they're really trying, you know, when it's a real contest."

"What are the rules of engagement?" said Loki.

"Oh they couldn't be simpler," said the Grandmaster, "really easy to follow, yeah. You lose, you die."

Loki blinked.

"Well I mean there's, you know-- there's things that happen that aren't losing or dying. Winning, uh, for one thing. That happens. Not often, though, that's what makes it special. Always nice to see a win," the Grandmaster gave Loki's knee a reassuring pat, "But that's quite the motivator, you know. You can always tell they're all uh, giving it their best down there."

"Hey maybe we could take you down there, huh? See how you fair?"

"Surely you can't be serious," said Loki, trying to keep the gravity of the situation out of his voice.

"Oh I am, I am, and uh, don't-- don't call me 'Shirley'," the Grandmaster winked. More so he... blinked, but one eye after the other as if they were each winking from a different face. "I think you'd do some real damage down there."

"Grandmaster, I don't think --"

"No, no, I don't think either. I think I'd rather have you all to myself," the Grandmaster turned back towards the observation window, "Ooooh! You see that android over on the east wall?"

Loki did not, but the Grandmaster didn't wait for an answer.

"He's great, great crowd work, good warm ups. Nothing, uh, nothing serious, y'know, but great before a fight. Worth keeping around. But, you know, what I'm really looking for is a contender."

"Beg pardon?" said Loki.

"A contender! A contender, someone to face my beloved champion."

"Wh- "

"My champion! My grand champion! Oh you'll have to see him one day, oh he's just incredible. Formidable. Such-- really such grace of form. Such oooh... carnage. Basically indestructible, but," the Grandmaster turned again, suddenly very serious, "but I don't bring him out for just anybody. He's worth more than that. He's too good to waste."

"Of course," said Loki, at somewhat of a loss.

"He was uh, he was brought to me by uhm, by one four two. By one four two, that sweet, lovely little so-and-so, she's the best, she really is. Best at what she does. Brought me my beloved champion-- never disappoints, that one. Neither does he, you know. My champion, that is. He's got quite a following, I'm told. Quite popular."

"I'll have to see him in action," said Loki.

"Oh you will, oh you surely will, I would uh, in fact-- I would insist on it, Loki. We'll just have to find-- see, that's the thing, isn't it? Finding a real contender. There's-- well there's always someone, you know? There's always someone worth putting in the ring but it's not-- you really have to find someone who's got the right stuff, you know? Might pose a real challenge, give a real fight. That's the thing, that's the game, you see. It's the matching. You gotta find the right one for the right whhuhuu," the Grandmaster waggled his fingers to underscore the warbling sound he made, as if that cleared things up.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly, still looking out the window with his hand stroking his chin, "you've, uh, you've got me rambling. You've got me distracted, you see, my uh, my sentences are getting away from me now it's just that. You're really all I can think about these days, uh, Loki, it's… well, it’s quite a distraction."

He turned his head, resting his chin on the heel of his hand, bracing his elbow against his knee. There was something in his heavy lidded eyes that sparked for a moment, and gave his generous features a cast of antiquity. For that moment, his attention had an unbearable physical weight to it, pinning Loki in his place like a mounted insect.

"It's just that you're so, and I really do mean this, I wouldn't be saying it otherwise -- I wouldn't dare lie to you," he put his hands up to underscore his point, displaying his palms, "but it's just that you're so beautiful, and so, uh, you're so interesting, so utterly fascinating, and splendid company, uh, to boot --"

The Grandmaster chuckled, and Loki thought of how he had spoken less in the past two days -- about himself or anything adjacent -- than he had ever before in his life.

"You're intriguing, really, so mysterious, and just... well, fascinating really. Just fascinating. Honest! You know, you, uh, you really are something, Loki. Something very special, I, uh, I find myself quite taken with you."

Loki found -- at the bottom of the pit that had opened in his stomach -- that he was quite taken with him as well. He was a lunatic, an eccentric, and in many ways a daft old man. He was fickle, hedonistic, and obsessive, and in a seat of power the likes of which Loki had never seen, not in all the backwater black holes of the galaxy he'd been dragged through since his first fall from grace. He was handsome, and ridiculous, and attentive in the most obviously superficial, non-committal, hypnotizing way that Loki had ever--

He lunged towards the Grandmaster to kiss him, lest he see the growing panic spreading over his face.

"Mmm, Loki, I-- mmm, I don't usually, uh," The Grandmaster pulled Loki into his lap by his waist so that his knees framed his hips, "I don't usually like to be, mmm, interrupted. But I think-- ah! I think, for this I might just, mmm hm, make- mmm, an exception--"

Loki did his best to keep kissing him through the endless two step of his sentence, pressing their lips back together every time they broke apart, determined to use his mouth to close his. The Grandmaster was not so easily deterred.

"Oh!" he yelped when Loki nipped his bottom lip and moved to kiss the corner of his mouth in penitence, "Hmm, yes, I think-- mm, I think just this once I might make an exception, but mm-- but only bec-- only because, mmm, because you're s-- you're such a--"

"Grandmaster," Loki interrupted, breathlessly, "kiss me back, I beg of you."

"Oh! Oh yes, oh darling, yes, of course, how rude of me, let me just--" The Grandmaster cut off his own sentence then, running his hands up Loki's back and flipping him belly up across his thighs like a kitten. He leaned over him, cradling his head in one hand and his hip in the other, and kissed him until he gasped for air.

Someone, somewhere, a thousand leagues from where Loki was considering growing gills, cleared their throat. The Grandmaster stopped kissing him, and the world came rushing back.

Behind him, where Loki could only see by craning his head back until the crown of it touched the seat beneath him, was Topaz, who looked, if anything, _more_ menacing upside down.

"Sire," she said, tight lipped.

"Uh, yes, hello," said the Grandmaster.

Loki, very wisely, kept his mouth shut.

"There's business to attend to," said Topaz, "I've been looking for you since dawn."

"Oh, well, you found me! Huh, so, uh, what was it th-"

"It's a political matter," Topaz interrupted, scowling at Loki, whose business this wasn't.

"Oh! Oh it's the, uh- the--"

"The sentencing."

"Yes! Yes, of course, the sentencing. Oh, how did I forget about-- yes. Alright, well, Loki!" The Grandmaster looked down, and Loki tilted his chin back toward him, batting his lashes, "how would you like to see a sentencing?"

"Sire, I hardly think that's appropriate --"

"No! Nonsense, no, it'll be fun, come on," the Grandmaster untangled himself from Loki and helped him sit up, again with such a startling lack of effort that Loki almost felt picked up by the scruff.

"Sire, I don't--"

But the Grandmaster was already in motion, dragging Loki first by the hand and then by the waist. Topaz, her staff adding a note in her footfall as it tapped alongside her, followed suit. The trio made their way through a number of hallways and skywalks, the Grandmaster chatting amicably the whole while. Somehow, despite the extensive and expansive tour they had undertaken this morning (surely it was afternoon by now, although it was impossible to tell how close it was to evening) the Grandmaster still had more sights to show, drawing Loki's attention to various details in the promenade below them and in the dozens of rooms, halls, suites, and corridors they passed on their walk.

Topaz kept a measured distance from the pair, anticipating sudden turns and stops with the practiced air of someone who had taken this same route with this same man too many times for their liking. She was shorter than them both by a head and a half, and her armor looked like it weighed twice as much as she did without it, but she kept pace with ease. Her stony expression remained so for the duration of their trip, and much like her master she didn't blink overmuch. Loki did his best not to look back at her. To better give the Grandmaster his full attention of course, and not because she scared him. He'd encountered much bigger and scarier things, not just in general but on this planet specifically. But in fairness, they hadn't supervised him quite as closely.

In a short time they arrived at a grandiose set of doors that led to a round meeting room with a long table at its center. There were a handful of well dressed diplomats already seated, each with a stack of papers and a number of touch screen tablets, some with glasses perched at the end of their noses. It was as solemn an affair as Sakaar was suited to, and already the gentle hum of hushed conversation was jarring against the rampant spectacle of... well, of what absolutely everything else had been. There was a smattering of tables and chairs pushed against the walls in a way that suggested they had been hastily cleared from the center of the room, and that this had been a cocktail lounge before it had been made a courtroom.

The group looked up at the Grandmaster's arrival and a nod of acknowledgement rippled through them before they bowed their heads again, engrossed in their work. The Grandmaster kissed Loki on the cheek and left to take his place at the head of the table. Topaz, without taking the time to cast even a withering glance, walked to join him, standing just behind his chair to his right. Not wishing to hang around in the doorway, Loki made himself comfortable in one of the decommissioned lounge chairs, turned so he could see the full table, and so that he was at the center of the Grandmaster's line of sight. One of the busy looking diplomats cleared his throat and shuffled his papers.

"We document the arrival of the Grandmaster and the captain of His guard at--"

"Objection," said a Hirogen across from him, one of his billowing blue sleeves taking out a stack of paperwork with the force of his gesture.

"I've hardly--"

"You've failed to document the arrival of th--"

"His presence is not of consequence," Topaz interrupted, "it will not be on formal record. Proceed."

Loki folded his hand primly, and watched the proceedings unfold. From what he could gather, the parties on either side of the table were at odds. There was a question put forth of a land dispute, and of property rights that sounded suspiciously like they were being applied to people. Both factions discussed cargo, and import proceedings, and tax law, detailing the ins and outs of what might have been a soured trade agreement. Through it all, Loki could see the Grandmaster wilting, sinking beneath the weight of his growing boredom with only his nails to chew on and his fingertips to drum against the table.

After a time, the first of the seated diplomats to speak called the discussion to a formal close, all the facts having been laid out by all involved parties. Topaz tapped her staff thrice against the floor.

"The Grandmaster will now give his ruling," she announced, "having heard the petition of his subjects."

"Hm?" said the Grandmaster, straightening his spine from the sad droop he had assumed over the table, "Oh, uhm, yes, well. Death."

The word was met with a brief but icy silence.

"Death?" said the Chalnoth at the end of the table, whose half moon glasses perched at the very tip of his long nose.

"Death," the Grandmaster repeated, "Death, I think that's fine, wouldn't you say, Topaz?"

"Yes, sire," said Topaz.

"Good, alright, good, yeah, I'm glad you agree. Yes, death."

"To...." the Angosian in the middle of the group said slowly.

"Oh, yes, of course, thank you," the Grandmaster cleared his throat, "yes, to all."

"To..." the Angosian repeated, in a much smaller voice.

"To all, yes. To all involved parties. You are being put to death," the Grandmaster clarified.

"Alright, well, that was tiring, uh I'm famished. Are you all...? Well I guess that doesn't matter. Alright, I'm going to dinner, then," he said, rising from his seat, "Loki, would you care to join me?"

Loki briefly caught Topaz's eye, who was looking directly at him for the first time that day. There was something in her dark brown eyes that felt incredibly familiar. Not in a way that Loki had ever seen before, but in a way that something in his brain stem had evolved around avoiding. He couldn't put a word to it, but he could feel it. He felt it like shrapnel in his chest and cold water down his back. She moved her eyes away from him and it was gone.

"Yes," said Loki, very quietly.

"Excellent, we'll be on our way then, Topaz!"

"Yes, sire?"

"You have this handled?"

"Yes, sire."

"Wonderful, alright."

Loki let himself be led out of the temporary chambers and back out into the hall, making an effort to dismiss the unmistakable sounds of ongoing carnage as the doors slid closed behind them.

Dinner was again served in the penthouse suite, on the same long table amid the same rotating crowd of acolytes, patrons, and devotees. Loki took his same seat at the Grandmaster's elbow, and was served a new menu of delicacies from across a dozen galaxies. The music was loud, the conversation was lively, the drinks were strong and never ending, and the Grandmaster kept a hand on his hip, his thigh, his neck. It almost took the edge off. Almost.

The evening turned slowly to night, a half dozen suns sinking below their horizon while a half dozen more bled in dazzling shades of crimson right above it. The crowd waxed and waned. The skyline lit up like a star field. The cocktails went straight to his head.

So the Grandmaster delighted in death. Who hasn't? Loki couldn't claim his own hands were clean of that same vice. There was something about death, after all, doled out by your own hand, that made power all the sweeter. It was one sweet thing to wield the knife and quite another to execute from afar. To orchestrate, as it were. And here it was so easy to _forget_ , so easy to convince yourself that you could never be on the short end of the Grandmaster's fickle nature. That was reserved for subjects, for gladiators. Not for special, beautiful, interesting, men that fell from the stars.

And there was something thoroughly and helplessly disarming about being the singular focus of a tyrant's attention for what had felt like days. Something like a drunk and heady sense of invulnerability. And beneath that glimmer of untouchability at the tippity top of a new hierarchy, something significantly more base. Something much more to do with touching. With having the breath and the sense kissed out of you. With being hand fed and paraded around and showered with compliments. With being teased at your neck and your shoulders and your waist and your thighs until you could scream. Something much more to do with feeling lovedrunk, strung out, and adored, than scaling a social ladder you hadn't even climbed the first rung of before being thrown to its upper echelon.

The horizon had been inky black for hours by the time they stood from the table, and a new, aching mess had been made of Loki's still tender neck. They strolled, stumbled, and kissed their way through three familiar sets of elevators, and in the blink of an eye they spilled out into a gleaming gold foyer, carpeted in red and lined with massive cathedral style windows. There were plants here as well, an eight foot fern between each narrow, pointed glass. Music played softly, and the city sprawl felt a million miles beneath them, twinkling in silence, all its chaos muted beneath the velvet cover of night. Directly across from the elevator was another set of sliding doors, their frame forming a three quarter circle between the ceiling and the floor. For all the intergalactic variety the capitol building held, it had the kind of rigid architectural consistency that made it clear it had been built by and for one man.

"It's getting late," said Loki, pressing his back coquettishly against the door frame, "what would you like to do next?

"What would you like to do, Loki?" said the Grandmaster, "And be honest with me, I'll know."

"Wh --" Loki opened his mouth to defend his innocence but didn't get much further.

"Oooh," the Grandmaster winced, "didn't mean for that to come off so threatening. It wasn't. A, uh, a threat, that is. It was threatening but not a threat. A warning? Maybe? Was that-- It's not true, you know. What they say. About me being poisonous. I'm not. Just... in case that was impacting your decision."

Loki blinked. So did the Grandmaster. Although... he actually may have been trying to wink at him--

"Don't lie, is what I meant," he clarified, "Or don't, uh, put on appearances. Y'see, it's interesting, when you get to be supreme godking overlord for life people have this odd way of bowing to your every whim which, y'know, it has its perks but really--"

"I'd like you to bed me," Loki interrupted.

"Oh!" said the Grandmaster, clapping his hands together in delight, "Oh that's wonderful. Good, then we're, uh, we're on the same page. Good. That's grand, here, let me just, get the door for you-- you know it's been-- I can't even remember the last time I had just one other person in here, oh, the bed's gonna feel so much bigger-- you know, I've been meaning to try this-- Let me get your coat, oh please I insist--"

Loki let himself be ushered over the threshold of the Grandmaster's quarters on a tidal wave of half finished phrases, the gilded doors sliding shut softly behind them.


	4. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, yes, _of course_ there is a shopping montage, who do you think I am?

Where Loki's temporary quarters had been anything but modest, the Grandmaster's suite was nothing short of garish. It was many roomed and lavishly furnished, with the kind of extravagant amenities that required a full staff to keep running. There were two levels, the second story opening out above the first in an open concept loft. It housed a minibar and a bed the size of a... really... large... it was like six of the biggest beds Loki had ever seen stitched together into an oblong. It was obscene.

Like the penthouse, this suite had floor to ceiling windows along its full circumference, revealing a dazzling view of the capitol, the marketplace, and the Tip stretching out into an infinite waste. The glass was fantastically clear, so much so that standing too close to it produced a keen and unyielding sense of vertigo. And yet, there seemed to be some sort of undetectable inlay that dimmed the three hundred and sixty degree sunshine to not just bearable but pleasant levels, so as not to obscure the view.

The lower level had a full bar, a kitchen, a glass-bottomed pool, and probably a few dozen more upscale luxury features that Loki hadn't seen yet. In fairness, it's not like he'd been given a tour.

He stood wrapped in a gold sheet nursing a cut glass of unidentified alien liquor, staring out at but not really seeing the sprawl of the planet below.

Despite himself, he thought of Asgard.

He thought of its feeble winter sunrises, the light struggling against the unyielding grey dome of the sky. Of its long, temperate summer days that bled seamlessly into glowing white nights. He thought of its woods and its mountains, of its glittering rainbow bridge and its deposed protector. He thought of his late mother and his many hundreds of quiet, mournful attempts at making peace with her departure. Of publicly mourning as her husband instead of her son. Of never having been her son at all. That, more so than the fable of his birth, felt like a lie. He thought of his father, who was so easy to dispose of and so easy to resent, and whose loss still felt wholly alien to him. More alien than the city below him. More alien than the acrid blue concoction he was reaching the end of.

He thought of Thor, and tried very quickly to stop.

Thor, golden haired, blue eyed, child of Asgard. The favored son, the one true heir, the God of Thunder. His damnable big brother. Impossible to resent and impossible to forgive. He was most likely dead. He was almost assuredly dead. It had been four impossibly long Sakaaran days since he'd last seen him, bathed in the overwhelming splendor of the Bifrost's enchanted light. He was definitely dead. And their sister had killed him.

Well, _his_ sister. Really not any of Loki's business at this point, was it? Seemed like a family affair.

_I love you my sons. Remember this place._

No, thought Loki very forcefully, shan't. Best to forget. He'd certainly found himself in the perfect place to do exactly that. Besides, he had more immediate concerns. More immediate threats to his person. Topaz, for one, seemed both capable and determined to wipe him off the face of the planet. The Grandmaster and the benefits of his favor were a sure thing right up until they wouldn't be any longer, and that moment stalked him around every corner. Although, the way things had been going, it was likely he had more time than not. Speaking of which--

"Goo --oo --ood morning, starshine," said the Grandmaster, coming up behind Loki to kiss his neck. It was a marvelous tonic for his woes, the way his breath poured over his shoulder, the way his lips pressed to his skin and his hands ran down his back.

"Hello darling," said Loki, leaning into his touch.

"Gold suits you," said the Grandmaster thoughtfully, and spun Loki to face him. He unwound the sheet from his waist and brought it up against his chest, letting it drape between his hands to approximate a cowl neckline. He tutted and changed its position, pressing the fabric in place against Loki's clavicles with the pads of his thumbs.

"Hmmmm, yes, brings out your eyes."

"I prefer black," said Loki.

"Oh and you wear it well you really do, but gold," the Grandmaster drew his hand back to kiss his fingertips before tossing them dramatically away from his lips in a gesture of admiration.

"Listen, Loki," he gathered the fabric back toward himself, wrapping it into a haphazard bundle in his arms and immediately casting it aside, "I have stuff this afternoon, really, uh-- unavoidable, I'm afraid. But if you don't have any other plans this morning, I was thinking we could finally do something about your wardrobe, huh? I mean, you certainly do travel light."

Loki put a hand on his hip and tossed his drained glass over his shoulder, watching the Grandmaster's eyes rove over his body as he did so, "Am I to take it you prefer me dressed?"

"Well," said the Grandmaster, suddenly bashful.

"Well dressed is second best to undressed," said Loki silkily, "I'd be glad to see what you had in mind."

They had a light breakfast and headed down to the promenade, Loki wearing the same simple tunic and trousers that had been laid out for him the day before. Their path through the hastily parting crowd took them towards the fashion district, where an octagonal plaza was surrounded by boutiques, a fabric store,and a tailor. They were immediately greeted by a Krylorian girl, shuffling toward them in a waist deep bow.

"Grandmaster," she said, with all the appropriate reverence.

"Yeah, hi," he said, "uh... Lu- was it? Lucy, was it? Lauren?"

"Leelah," said Leelah.

"Leelah, right, right, this is uh," the Grandmaster waved towards Loki, who politely inclined his head, "this is my, uh-- this is Loki."

"Good morning," said Loki.

"And y'see, we, I mean you can probably tell we, uh, _have_ to do something about his wardrobe and I thought, uh, well, what did I say, Loki? I said Lauren--"

"Leelah," said Leelah.

"That's what I said, I said Leelah down at the fashion district she'll, uh, she'll sort us right out. Didn't I?"

"You did," said Loki, and looked at Leelah, who was biting back a smile in a way that implied she knew very well the Grandmaster had said no such thing.

"Exactly, and so, uh, here we-- here we are, and here you are ready to-- to sort us out, then," the Grandmaster, shocked at having come to the end of his sentence, folded his hands behind his back. He nodded, at neither Loki nor Leelah, before readjusting his hands to hang at his sides. That didn't feel quite right either so he raised one hand to his chin and used the other to prop up his elbow, looking... one might say pensive.

"If you'll follow me please," said Leelah, looking at Loki, now, "I'd be glad to show you our catalog."

"I'd be delighted," said Loki, and followed her forward.

Their catalog was, as to be expected, massive. There were styles ready to wear from every quadrant Loki had ever been to and another hundred he suspected Leelah was making up. Simple, practical, daily attire from a thousand different planets for a hundred different tasks. Extravagant, avant garde, haute couture, nonsense from a thousand more places besides. And that was just what they had off the rack.

Leelah and a handful of similarly bright eyed, well trained staff draped Loki in taffeta, organza, brocade, chiffon, chemise, and chenille, pining, stitching, and measuring as they went.

The Grandmaster sat on a low, mint green chaise lounge eating sliced Altadoran grapes off a gold plate and making small noises of approval and delight. _Oh, yes, that one's good. With the beads, yes. Try pinning the collar, yeah. Oh, definitely that one!!_

There was something about clearing out a department store the size of a Terran football stadium before ordering twice as many pieces made to fit that struck... a chord, with Loki.

He had never had any need for money. Not on Asgard, not on Midgard, not in any of the backwater boreholes he'd had to crawl into to lick his wounds. Not on Sakaar, where barter ruled the day as much as mismatched currency ever could. For centuries now, Loki had comfortably used the magical gifts his mother had taught him to his own advantage. He had no need, and no appreciation, for money.

But he was singularly fond of _wealth_ which was something else entirely. Which was power by another name. Money could only take you as far as any one or another denomination. Money could be forged, or stolen, or conveniently misplaced. Money could be transferred to offshore accounts or else lost in a banking error. _Wealth_ was altogether less ephemeral. Wealth was the unmistakably heady happening he'd borne witness to for the last few days. What he'd been mired and marinated in since the moment he'd first put a conjured dagger to the Grandmaster's throat. Wealth was exactly what he needed to be in the middle of to maintain a lifestyle that had very recently burst into flames. Wealth was what made him lunge, bare shouldered and pinned into three muslin panels, into the Grandmaster's arms for the umpteenth time that morning.

Somewhere in between one asymmetrical beaded ensemble and the next, the Grandmaster excused himself to attend to matters of state, the agony of the prospect weighing his voice down as he did so. Loki saw, not for the first time, how deeply it wounded him to be _bored_. To be godking forever of the most fabulously entertaining place in all creation and to be pulled into _meetings_. The weight of it drew down his shoulders and moored his animated features in self pity.

Loki, as it happened, was the best, the latest, the greatest, and most immediate cure to any boredom the Grandmaster might encounter. There to keep him away from it, there to rescue him from it when it caught up to him. His fate was assured for as long as he was a tonic to the Grandmaster's ailment. Best to get a feel for the place before that duty became more complicated than a plunging neckline or a cold shoulder.

While Leelah arranged to transport their purchase to the Grandmaster's suite, Loki put in an order for a more sensible set of leathers, more akin to what he had worn on Asgard before he had left it to its ruin. He also asked for a cape, because it was being paid for anyway and truth be told he felt naked without one. An obliging Xandarian man took note of his measurements and asked him to return later on that afternoon.

Left to his own devices, Loki made good use of his time. He shapeshifted his way into access to the garage and wore the face of a half dozen different staff to tour his way through it, peering over enough shoulders to figure out the access codes for all of the many stowed vessels. The security system was a touch harder to figure out, but a doppelganger misdirection and a skillful throwing of his voice landed him full access to the central observation deck. It was deep underground, set into the heart of the Capitol, and manned by a rotating cast of armed officers. Its layout was similar to the security desk Loki had passed on his way into the building, replicated at scale. Instead of encircling one many-armed many-eyed girl, the monitors here hugged the full perimeter of the room, showing passageways, holding cells, and a disconcerting number of private rooms.

Resolving to make better and more frequent use of his invisibility spells, Loki moved on.

He toured the armory with the vague hope of finding something powerful or interesting instead of bits and bobs of rusted scrap metal used by desperate prisoners to kill their peers. It was enclosed by a laser array and flanked by a bar. A scrapper bar, from the look of it. Which was seedy.

He took note of where the scrappers made their entrances and exits, and which took the time to tease their morning's catch from the safety of their bar stools. There weren't too many prisoners at the moment, but the ones Loki did see looked pathetic. Although that was easy to say from this side of the laser array, he supposed.

All the more reason to _stay_ on this side of the laser array.

From the armory he made his way to the bestiary where creatures just as sentient and just as desperate were kept in cages half as small. He didn't stay long.

When Sakaar's many suns stood at their halfway point in its war torn sky, Loki made his way back towards the upper levels of the Capitol building, stopping in to pick up his commissioned leathers before heading towards another repurposed set of chambers.

He found the Grandmaster at the head of another long table, his chin in his hand, propped up by his elbow. The look on his face was that of a man begging to die. Spontaneously. Immediately. By any means available. Loki gave him a wink from the doorway and watched the light come back into his eyes, an arch flirtation spreading over his features.

He crossed the room and stood by Topaz, who had taken her usual spot just behind her master. If irritation had a temperature, Loki would surely have boiled alive.

"Good afternoon, Topaz," he said warmly. He kept his voice low, so as not to disrupt the ongoing proceedings. It was something legislative today. Formal. Dry.

Topaz scowled.

"Hard, is it? Getting a megalomaniac to engage in civic responsibilities?" Loki folded his hands behind his back, rocking back on his heels, "You know, I have what might be termed an _unusually_ robust portfolio of experience where that's concerned."

Topaz scoffed, rolling her eyes and flexing her fingers around her scepter.

"I'm not your enemy, Topaz."

"Please," she said finally, "you wouldn't last two minutes against me."

"Oh, doubtlessly!" said Loki, "Which is precisely why we should be friends."

"We're not friends."

"Not yet."

"Don't get so far ahead of yourself," she said, looking straight ahead, her tongue skipping over her vowels like watermelon seeds, "You're temporary. I give it another week, maybe two, before you say something to really piss 'im off."

"I'll tread carefully," said Loki.

"Good plan," said Topaz, "then he'll get bored of you."

"You're awfully sour this afternoon, Topaz. Is that how he kicked _you_ out of bed?"

"Nah, they're all cocky at the start," she said with an acrid smile, "they all think they're different."

"This seems to be a sore subject for you, Topaz. I'm happy to change it."

"I have an interdimensional anomaly to keep in order you little cockroach," Topaz snarled, her knuckles turning white, "which is enough of a paradox to keep me on my toes without useless little pretty boys like you keeping the Grandmaster out of his meetings."

"Then I'll do my best to keep him on schedule," said Loki softly, "to atone for the last... useless little pretty boy."

☆ ★ ☆

The next day, he kept them in bed until well into the afternoon. A trick he repeated the day after, and then again the day after that.

Very quickly, the days began to bleed together in their luxury, and the next week passed not unlike the last, on a tide of lust, opulence, and excess.

The Grandmaster kept Loki close, but not, from what he could tell, under close scrutiny. And so, he was often left to his own devices. He used his time strategically, gathering information, making acquaintances, and courting alliances.

This was made easier by the fact that with all his free time, Loki was earning quite a bit of money, having gotten very good at cheating at a very large number of games. Never mind that all of it came to him in mismatched, out of date currency. Money on Sakaar was utilized best when it was being given away, which Loki was happy to do for the appropriate underlings of influence and note.

He was paying off the highest officers in Topaz's ranks as quickly as she could replace them, and likely paying the mortgages on a number of off world vacation homes for a large portion of the kitchen staff. You'd be shocked how easily people let state secrets slip out over dinner. Well, you would be, but Loki wouldn't. Loki knew exactly when and where state secrets were at their most vulnerable. So he kept tabs on the brothels as well. In fact, he paid them double what he paid the waitstaff.

Despite the intricacy and expanse of his network of informants Loki found it incredibly simple to keep up appearances as a man with no need for and no access to money. Whatever the cost of his stay at the Capitol, it was clearly being billed to somebody's tab. Well, specifically the Grandmaster's tab, who owned not only the establishment, but all the lost souls and ill gotten goods that passed through it. A fact that Loki was well aware of and used to his full advantage. After all, hanging off the Grandmaster's arm had as many expenses as it did benefits.

There was a new wardrobe, of course, all the better to partake in fine dining, high stakes gambling, live theater, and a laundry list of elicit and unmentionable activities that usually left said wardrobe at the door. There was whatever unfathomable cost was attached to all of those activities themselves. And then there was travel, something notoriously difficult to do on or off Sakaar, and something the Grandmaster organized in style.

He did actually take Loki to the Tannhäuser Gate, and spent the while grumbling that the C-beams really were brighter in the spring. Loki, meanwhile, who had seen the vast expanse of all nine realms in their full and biblically awesome splendor since he was a boy, could hardly keep the tears from his eyes at the sight of them.

Amid the unending torrent of extravagance there would always be... something. A prick in the eye. A thorn in the side. One or another public execution. A regular at the dinner table suddenly replaced by a stranger and their name never uttered again. The notable absence of one or another double digit scrapper. On two occasions, Loki saw a familiar face from the Arena's observation deck, once laughing as their maquillage was washed away by champagne, now bleeding face down in the sand. Both times, Loki turned and put his head back down into the Grandmaster's lap.

It didn't worry him over much. Turning a blind eye to ongoing atrocities was part and parcel of playing politics. And of all the games on Sakaar, this one he undeniably played best.

Loki made his peace, so quickly he shocked even himself, with the whole of his situation. If he had entertained any nascent notions of leaving in his first week, they were irreverent fantasies by the second and wholly absent from his mind by the third. He was, by his nature, a blood sucking thing. A cuckoo in a stranger's nest. An ornery dog in a gilded manger. He was the last lost child of Asgard, rightful king of Jotunheim, separated from any birth rite he may have once been granted by time and distance. By pat- and fratricide.

It dulled the loss, to be flung so far out of reality and out across space. It was another Loki, son of Odin, that had lost his father, his sister, his brother, and all the realms he had ever known in one fell swoop. It was another Loki that had not yet finished mourning his mother. Another Loki that had been twice a conqueror and twice an exile.

Perhaps that Loki still existed in some other dimension, outside of this anomalous tear in the fabric of space. But surely he wasn't here, and surely this present and very content Loki would never have to face the enormity of that sad, lost, lonely, abandoned, Loki's grief.

He was well suited to this place, and staying here suited him just fine. If ever the phantom voices of whatever that other Loki had lost grew too loud for this perfectly well adjusted Loki to handle, there was an unending supply of psychotropics to wash down with an unending amount of alcohol to put those voices to rest. It was all coming up roses, as far as he could tell.

Until one day, in the middle of what promised to be a very pleasant afternoon, when the Grandmaster had been called away to inspect one or another newly arrived piece of merchandise, a contemptibly familiar voice broke through the haze of substance use and sex that had so successfully kept the whole lot of them down for just shy of a month. There was no reason for this one to ring out so clearly, to crest from excitement to anger, unless.... no-- it couldn't actually b-- that wasn't really-- Oh. Oh it was. _Oh shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a twenty thousand word labor of love. Love for Loki, love for sci-fi fantasy escapism, love for old queens and mad kings. Thank you for your readership, I am lucky to have it.


End file.
